First month Results

Shank's Pov: I woke up to a starry night with a campfire near me. I took a moment to reorient myself by reviewing what happened to me during the seven hour sparring session. I thought about our last clash before I blacked out. Before our swords clashed,my observation flared to life to warn me of the danger Rayleigh's last attack would do to me. I seemed to have imbued my saber with Ryou in response even if I did it unconsciously. ''That was impressive". I looked at Rayleigh who sat on the other side of the campfire while drinking some wine and gorging on what seemed like sea king meat. " Not many awaken an advanced form of haki from simply sparring with another person. Seems like you won the bet. Anyways, you did good. We'll be focusing on getting you used to using Ryou consciously and proficiently in all our next spars for the next couple of days.'' I nodded at his words before getting up to grab that sea king meat and some wine. Dinner was a quiet affair as I reflected on the spar and what to improve on. I eventually went back to sleep after a heavy reflection session. Only to wake up at two at night due to the roars of another beast hoard. The same thing that happened on the last beast horde happened except this time i got a little bit stronger and i had less sleep so my irritation was higher than previously. I slaughtered the whole horde in under an hour as I didn't hold back at all. I went back to sleep after killing the last grizzly bear that attacked me in one shot. I woke up later as the sun started to dominate the sky again in place of the moon. I started the same routine like yesterday and I was less exhausted during all the activities. In our second spar , I managed to use Ryou five times. I almost even grazed Rayleigh who used a greater amount of strength than yesterday. The spar lasted 8 hours this time as I adjusted myself easier in the fight and had more stamina. I still got knocked out but only for a short period of time compared to last time. I wanted some animals on the island as the sun was still out,although barely. This same training lasted for a whole week and I have got to say,it was worth it. I quickly got used to the routine. I even had to switch from the small mountain I was punching to one that was a bit bigger. On the fourth day on the island, I broke the small mountain into pieces. When I told this to Raleigh , he was shocked for a few moments before he just laughed. After laughing like a maniac for a couple of seconds, he told me to switch to a mountain that was a little bigger. My eyes and mouth twitched for a minute before I just sighed and did so the next day. The biggest reason for my rapid increase in strength was due to the spars I had with him. Each time we fought, he would always increase the amount of strength and how he used haki . He even used emission in one of our spars. On our sixth spar to be specific. It hurt like hell after the spar and I had to get some extra sleep to make sure I properly recovered. He seemed shocked the next day when I did my routine around the island and fought him with little to no injuries from the emission move he used with his cutlass last minute during the previous spar. He used it again during the spar ,but this time I was prepared. The moment he tried using it, I coated the targeted spots with as much armament haki as possible to defend my guts from being rearranged again .The next day ,he was even more surprised when I also used emission ,all bait not on his level, against him in our last clash for the day. While it didn't injure him, it did push him back which gave me time to perform my greatest move that i developed this week. The move was called " piercing sovereign'' To perform the attack, I needed to have some space which I got with the surprise use of emissions to push him back. Then I sent ten consecutive slashes filled with strong armament haki, which grew the most in our spars apart from strength. As he was dodging the slashes, I used my top speed to appear where he was going to appear by relying on my observation to predict the place he was to dodge to. I then imbued my saber,Gryphon, with a mix of emission and Ryou to deal the greatest amount of damage possible to him. I was internally celebrating ready to watch him at least get injured but the dark king seemed to have seen the future as he used the fastest amount of speed he had ever used during our spars to dodge my attack. I was caught off guard for a moment thinking I didn't injure him, only to see a slight graze on his left cheek. This caught me even more off guard,He also seemed surprised as i was that i injured him. We stared at each other in a moment of surprise before he laughed for a second before he attacked and we continued our spar for the day. The spar lasted for ten hours this time. Even though I still lost,I was in higher spirits the whole day and night. Even the beast horde that night quelled my good mood. This served as greater motivation to train more during the next week and half. Which brings me back to the present time. ................... End Of Flashback.................... With our continuous spars that lead up to the end of first month on this island, my strength had grown considerably and so did my haki in response. My proficiency in armament haki skyrocketed to the next level as I reached a level just below Rayleigh in its usage. Using emission and Ryou become what started the spars. Rayleigh got used to me using them in surprise moments pretty quickly and he adapted by adjusting his attack patterns during different intervals in our spar. This forced me to improvise with new moves each time and he responded in kind. Eventually, as my proficiency in Ryou and emission increased , I started to use them regularly to the point I started to enhance my regular attacks like 'Red Rush' and 'Red sovereign' in them. As I thought about my training during the first month, I stopped as I found Rayleigh sitting on a boulder with some wine on his hand with his cutlass hanging in its sheath.He seemed like he was lost in his own little world that he got out of the moment he saw me.